Month: November 2018

The Circus of Democracy

~ Jessica Savage ~ Leave a comment

The Joint Select Committee final report has just come out, but I have not read it, and am not writing about that just now. I want to write about the circus show that is being played before the eyes of the public. 

If you look at who is initiating processes, who is funding processes, and which individuals are actors in the processes, it is bleedingly obvious that the Constitutional Reforms are being driven by the Government, and are being helped along by unelected, not endorsed under Aboriginal law nor the Aboriginal Community,  ‘Aboriginal Leaders’.  If you understand that the reforms will benefit Government far, far more than they will benefit Aboriginal people, you know there is a very strong motive. 

In “our democracy”, it is supposed to work something like this; the public want to change “their” constitution, so they go to their representatives who’s job is to get the ball rolling to hold a referendum to get the changes through. This is why the Yulara Statement was addressed from the non-Australian sovereigns of the soil to the Australian people, and not to the politicians. The Australian people are then, in turn, supposed to act on it and carry it to politicians in an attempt to appear that the request has come from Australians. Meanwhile the Government runs committee after committee, while simultaneously running various PR campaigns to keep the momentum to “raise awareness”, going against the will of the people for their own power. This is a bastardisation of democracy bordering on tyranny. 

Every good show needs a villain. Malcolm Turnbull put his hand up for the job and has continually copped it for rejecting it and “lying” about it being a third-chamber. When Turnbull lost his position as Prime Minister it became a hard for him to continue to play the scapegoat, so less than two weeks later Tony Abbott was nominated as “Indigenous Envoy” to replace him. I gotta say he does a fantastic job at looking like a clown, very entertaining. Nigel Scullion has also been made the bogyman by allocating funding according to the national interest, fueling derision of the deluded who think an “Indigenous Affairs Minister”, sworn to the Crown, should be looking after Indigenous interests. No doubt the same people who think the Chief Protector of Aborigines’ job was to “protect” Aborigines.

There is a very consistent pattern that has gone since First Contact, Government creates the problems, then they present their solution on a silver-platter, which usually does bugger-all to solve the problem, but would you please see how hard they are trying! Not their fault Aborigines don’t stay alive and out of jail… So many black kids in jail…if only we had an advisory body enshrined in the Constitution everything would be so much better, right? One of the oldest tricks in the book. Also note how they use the Labor/Liberal, good cop/bad cop dichotomy to feign disagreement while they buy themselves time to push their bipartisan agenda onto the public.

The Australian public have been indoctrinated (falsely) over many decades that Aboriginal people are Australians too. “We’re all Aussies”. They have deeply grounded (albeit with some major blindspots) ideals of equality. Tall-poppy syndrome is a symptom of this. Trying to turn around now and claim that Aboriginals need special treatment in the Constitution is going to be a very hard sell. The reason that the 1967 referendum was so successful was not because of a wish to help “the poor Aborigines”, it was successful because it removed “special treatment” of a particular race from the constitution. Now, the Australian public are not buying-in to special treatment for Aborigines – and why should they when it is contradictory to their values of equality? The only way they might come around is to explain what is really going on and tell them their Hills-Hoist is at risk, but that would be Game Over because Aborigines would also see what’s going on. 

No politician is going to stick their neck out for a referendum that doesn’t have clear public support. It is not that politicians are against it. They are very supportive of getting their power secured by Aboriginal sovereignty. They are waiting on public support, which is just not there.

The other major actors – the Aboriginal Community. Have you seen them out on the streets and out on social media campaigning for whitefellas to support Constitutional Reform? I saw one protest in the mainstream media run by Aboriginal organisations. 

In an unprecedented show of unity, the coalition of land councils, medical services, legal services, child and family services and education advocates – representing thousands of Aboriginal people across the state

So who funds these organisations? And note the protest was run on a workday/weekday. There is no authentic, Indigenous grassroots movement. I could be cherry-picking – go search yourself and see if you can find authentic-looking actions from the Aboriginal community. I’m not saying there are no Aboriginal people supporting it, but the support is far from overwhelming like the media and proponents are trying to make out. My feeling is that most in the Aboriginal community are generally disinterested and slightly skeptical. Then there are some that are very against it like myself, especially amongst the Sovereignty proponents, who are a growing minority of a minority. The majority in the Aboriginal Community don’t give a crap, and are probably as apathetic about the Australian constitution as most whitefellas are.

The real players and drivers – the think tanks, insiders, influencers. These are the mechanisms driving the changes. The Cape York Institute, Uphold and Recognise, the Referendum Council, the Joint Select Committee/the Government themselves, legal institutions, certain universities, Australian-appointed UN representatives, certain media outlets, Land Councils, mining, banks… it goes deep. Look who is on these bodies, the history of these individuals, who is supporting these bodies etc. I won’t go into that here because it deserves a post on it’s own. The same individuals are moving in-between these circles, opportunities pop-up for them at just the right time, the same names keep popping up – because they have ‘the background knowledge’, right? And they have the nerve to preach self-determination.

Maybe if Aboriginal people were simply granted some control of their own land  they would be able to organise politically on their own terms, but they are busy trying to stay alive in an oppressive system while vampires work on stolen land to appropriate Aboriginal sovereignty while pretending to help.

Don’t be fooled by the circus show. We are all been taken for a ride.

Vimeo – new Channel

~ Jessica Savage ~ Leave a comment

This is just a note to let any of my blog followers know, I now have a channel on Vimeo. I made this to make the information here more accessible to people who would rather listen than read. Here’s a link to the channel;

https://vimeo.com/user91910335

Right now, I have two videos up. One is about the First Nations Voice to Parliament, the other is about Makarrata. They are the first videos I have ever made, they are slide-shows with voice-over.

“Truthtelling”

~ Jessica Savage ~ Leave a comment

This post I will examine the third step of the Uluru Statement reforms – known interchangeably as Truth or Truthtelling.

  1.  Voice: Give us a consultative body and citizenship in exchange for our Sovereignty
  2. Makarrata: Federal Government and States share our birthright amongst themselves
  3. Truthtelling: Rewriting the history books

They say, history is written by the victor. Australia has not yet secured victory over the original inhabitants. Australia’s history books have until very recently (with the help of Aboriginal activists and “black armband” historians) ignored Aboriginal peoples. The historical narrative and objectives of Australian colonisation have gone through several phases, we are now nearing the conclusion of the final phase (if successful). The best way to explain what is happening now is by comparing to the previous phases.

Phase 1: Hope that we will simply die out

Terra Nullius… they came knowing full well that the land was inhabited, they knew we had law (they used our own laws against us),  but for their own convenience they hoped and thought we would just die off. To speed up the process – they turned a willful blind-eye while “settlers cleared” the land. “Squatters rights” – meant that those “clearing” the land were handsomely rewarded. The most successful land-clearing families became part of the who’s who of colonial Australia, they became very powerful and many of them are still holding the reigns in politics and business today.  They got there via hard work – hard, hands-on work. Slaughter, rape, dispossession, cover-up and genocide of the Aboriginal peoples, as well as building farms and businesses on the land they acquired. If phase 1 were successful in wiping out Aboriginal people, the Terra Nullius narrative would have become retrospectively true in the history books, leaving behind fragments of a story of a mysterious race of people who just as mysteriously disappeared.

Phase 2: Hope that we will assimilate and forget who we are

Time went on. The death of the “last Aborigine in Tasmania” became etched in their history almost like it was a proud milestone. But we are still here fighting. Decent Australians complained about Aboriginal peoples being excluded and destitute, prompting a change in strategy toward assimilation policies. We were taken from our parents, put in boarding schools and missions, were taught how to clean houses and ride horses. Gradually, we gained rights normally granted to citizens, learnt white-man’s ways, and became part of their world. Today schools, universities, identified positions in the public service, and the lure of money are some of the main tools of assimilation. But we always retained our culture, and in some ways it became stronger as we united both in our struggle against oppression, and by our collective feeling of never really belonging.

The Terra Nullius myth has left remnants which can still be seen in the legal system post-Mabo. This lie has become very difficult to sustain when even school kids around the world know that Aboriginal people still live in Australia and still practice their law and culture. Also very problematic is we have not forgotten who we are, and we continue consistently and clearly resist and call for our Sovereignty to be acknowledged and for Treaty. The obviousness of the Terra Nullius lie is a massive problem for the Australian Government that “Truthtelling” will solve.

Phase 3: Act like we allowed the Colonisers here all along

How will “truthtelling” solve this problem of the Terra Nullius lie? There are clues in the Uluru Statement itself. There is a huge omission – the statement says absolutely nothing about the ongoing and active struggle of our peoples against oppression. It lists a few symptoms such as high incarceration, but stops short of explaining why – just blowing it off that it is caused by ‘a structural problem’ that can be solved by constitutional assimilation. It is like all those who fought for our land, our law and our culture never existed.

an excerpt from the Uluru Statement;

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under our own laws and customs. This our ancestors did, according to the reckoning of our culture, from the Creation, according to the common law from ‘time immemorial’, and according to science more than 60,000 years ago.
This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

By getting mob to sign this – they tricked them to acknowledge and to backdate Crown claims of Sovereignty to 1770. Note the past-tense in the first paragraph – we “were” (not “are”) the first sovereign Nations, we “possessed it” etc. Implying that we are no longer sovereign Nations, nor still in possession of the continent. Yet it also says sovereignty “has never been ceded or extinguished” – so what happened to our Sovereignty?

To paraphrase another part – our “Sovereignty is a spiritual notion” that “co-exists with the Sovereignty of the crown“. Co-existing sovereignty implies a sharing arrangement, which is exactly what the Constitutional Reforms via a Federalism agreement will formalise. The First Nations sovereignty claim will retain the ‘spiritual’ part – while the Crown has gained sovereignty gradually by moving across the land, claiming the land, minerals, flora, fauna, waters, everything they want. But Australia has no interest in acquiring a Spiritual connection, so First Nations present no threat in asserting their spiritual interests in the Uluru Statement.

This is philosophically in line with the Mabo “acquisition of Sovereignty by settlement” and Howard’s Native Title bucketloads of extinguishment. I would say this thinking dates back to at least the mid 90’s, and sharing via Federalism was probably planned since then as a ‘plan B’ if the ‘plan A’ of Recognition + Republic didn’t work.

So how does all of this fit in with Truthtelling? Well I think it’s pretty clear. History will be gradually rewritten and selectively emphasised to give the impression that we passively consented to being slowly assimilated. The long-term goal of “Truth” is to construct a clean and consistent narrative for the consumption of future generations of Australians. The current narrative is a dog’s breakfast of contradictions, it needs repairing and cleaning. Our resistance needs to be brushed off like those who walked out of the Yulara dialogues – you can’t please everyone, right?

How History is being rewritten

The mainstream media has been paying more attention to Aboriginal history in the last decade. Pay attention to what is being revealed and discussed – you may notice it mostly falls into one of two categories;

  1. Big, brutal events they cannot deny because there is already high awareness like documented frontier massacres already uncovered by independent researchers. These events might still not appear just yet in official accounts if it will cause their story to prematurely collapse – eg. you wont see the Frontier Wars in the Australian War Memorial until they have us safely in the Constitution. or;
  2. Relatively tame, trivial, information about culture, or pre-contact stories, that do not involve gross crimes against humanity and don’t show evidence of active resistance.

Here is an example of category 2 from the planned Cooktown 2020 event;

Over the weeks, their courage grew and the Bama instigated meetings with Cook’s crew with relations between them being largely friendly. Over seven separate meetings they spent sufficient time together for Cook, Banks and the Endeavour’s team of naturalists to record more than 130 words of the native language. One of the words recorded was gangurru, which was spelt ‘kangaroo’.

Then relations took a turn for the worse. The Endeavour crew caught some turtle and refused to share them with the local clan. This was a sign of great disrespect for the Guugu Yimithirr. The meat of ngawiya was so highly valued that it would always be given first to the Elders, and only when they had finished would the remainder be eaten by the rest of the clan. Cook’s men, of course, knew nothing of this and thought the turtle was rightfully theirs and needed all the meat for their voygage home to England.

The Guugu Yimithirr were incensed, and the scuffle that followed could easily have led to bloodshed – the Guugu Yimithirr greatly outnumbered the Endeavour crew and there were numerous opportunities to spear them but, perhaps because they were on neutral ground, the dispute was quickly resolved and the Bama allowed Cook and his men to leave unharmed.

Had this not been the case, how different our history would be. The British Admiralty would not have been told of the discovery of a new land and, eighteen years later, the First Fleet would not have arrived at Sydney Cove to begin building the country we now call Australia.

They could have killed every man on the Endeavour – but they didn’t. Does that imply ambivalence to Cooks presence? And until 15-20 years ago, the story emphasis would have been about Cook repairing his ship, the indigenous would have been a footnote.

Outside of these 2 categories there are plenty of stories that would show active resistance, premeditated attacks against Aboriginal Sovereignty, and plenty of ‘smaller’ albeit abhorrent stories. These stories won’t be volunteered, they will only come out if independent researchers first force them out, then they will be downplayed and discredited as much as possible – a good example would be John Pilger’s Utopia documentary. Utopia is not “Truthtelling”.

In another 50 years or even less – the zeitgeist will be “everyone can play the didgeridoo and Australia is officially 60,000 years old.” By reading the Uluru Statement, future generations of Australians will have no hint of our resistance, even though in 2017/18 it is an intrinsic part of our story. Maybe they will look at photos of the Tent Embassy with it’s “Sovereignty” sign and interpret it as a request to join Australia.

“Truthtelling” is not for our benefit

Don’t expect “Truthtelling” to be a path to fair restitution, compensation, justice, cultural protection (beyond that which is commercially valuable), war crime investigations, genocide tribunals or any apologies. Don’t expect it to allow us to share the burden of carrying the horrific stories we have passed down through our families. Don’t expect we can finally go and say ‘hi’ to our non-indigenous cousins who don’t even know we exist, even though we share grandfathers – the fathers of the stolen generations. We will keep carrying the dirty secrets until they are forgotten.  There will be no justice in this “Truthtelling”, it’s sole purpose is to rewrite history to benefit the oppressor.

Makarrata: Sharing the Spoils of Conquest

~ Jessica Savage ~ 1 Comment

For background – please read The Uluru Statement is not what you think first which discusses in detail the danger of the enshrinement of the First Nations Voice to Parliament.

The Yulara Statement has 3 components, Voice, Makarrata, Truth. This post will focus on the second component – Makarrata.

Makarrata is not a Treaty in the sense of the normal, International context of the word – it is a post-treaty negotiation framework. The real “Treaty” happens at step 1, the enshrinement of the Voice to Parliament. This is where First Nations trade a share of their Sovereignty for a consultative voice and Australian Citizenship. And to be clear – when I say ‘a share of their Sovereignty’, it is more like putting the entire cake on the table and offering the Government to ‘help themselves’.

Once the Voice is enshrined and First Nations sovereignty along with it, the irreversible damage has been done. There is no going back. First Nations have advisory-only powers from then on. International doors are closed for good. If you have a problem with the process from here on – please contact your friendly First Nations voice representative and ask they present a stern word via their special mechanism to the Federal Parliament. Yulara Statement campaigners will have you believe the threat of mere words will have Parliament shaking in their boots and motivated to do the right thing.

When Sharing is not Caring

After our sovereign powers are locked up in the Federation, they need to be ‘shared out’, or directed from the previous holder to the appropriate new holder. The purpose of the Makarrata commission is to facilitate this process. See animated gif below;

Makarrata Commission facilitates one-way transfer of powers from First Nations to States and Federal Government
Created with Open Source software by the Author, and with ezgif.com for animation. graphics from the flags are fair-use, clipart is from Apache Open Office Impress. Feel free to share.

This is the reason Victoria is establishing a Treaty process and why Australia-wide they are talking about making treaty commissions for each state, and possibly also for local governments. It is so the state can negotiate (strip) the powers from individual First Nations’ groups that the States require. This process is pending entirely on the Federal enshrinement of the Voice. If you know that “Sovereignty Never Ceded” – then by extension you can deduce the states currently have NO legitimate powers on this continent because the claim of the Crown is still – under jurisdiction of International law – based on Terra nullius. The first priority of the States and the Federal Government will be to get the powers they currently pretend to have. They will do this without compensating First Nations for this unseen, smoke and mirrors power grab.

Initial priority of Makarrata is to ensure States have their powers upheld
Created with Open Source software by the Author, graphics from the flags are fair-use, clipart is from Apache Open Office Impress. Feel free to share.

Currently, First Nations hold all powers. So for First Nations to negotiate in a Treaty, they will by definition lose powers – whether it be via a Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties International Treaty or by a Federation + Makarrata process. The purpose of negotiating is to make an optimal agreement where each party is treated fairly. Optimally – both parties walk away happy,  but for both parties to walk away from negotiations a little disappointed is also indicative of a good balance being met.  In this case, that would mean Australia securing their legitimacy and First Nations will get something worthwhile in return for giving away part of their powers, like guaranteed rights, cultural protections, royalties or land taxes as compensation for land lost, land with rights to run commercial activity etc.

But under Makarrata – there is no bargaining power when you don’t have the right to say no. First Nations will lose their Dreaming, Australia will enjoy a free-for-all to take whatever they want. This is not a fair negotiation. If this happens it will cement one the biggest ongoing injustices ever committed against an entire race of innocent peoples.  This will then be swallowed down with the 3rd course – “Truth” (in a very Orwellian sense) which will cover-up and sanitize the narrative. This “Truth telling” has already begun, but I will save this for another post.

Comparison with Native Title Act

Overall, this is very similar in pattern to what happened with native title. Native Title Act was a method to kill land rights. Constitutional reform will kill Sovereignty. The same modus operandi is at play – take it all away by stealth, then give a little back pretending to be generous.

Native title: First Nations jump through hoops to prove they have allodial title land rights. Government writes up these allodial rights in their system, grants First Nations a small subset of these rights back, and agrees to stop harassing First Nations on their own land. Government acts like they are doing First Nations a favour.

Constitutional reform: Government absorbs First Nations sovereign powers into the Federation under the guise of giving First Nations a consultative Voice. Government gives First Nations a subset of these powers back – including the Voice itself and Makarrata “negotiation” opportunity, and agree to stop harassing First Nations. Government acts like they are doing First Nations a favour.

Makarrata will last indefinitely

As First Nations hold all powers, they may hold powers that Governments will need later on. These are “residual powers”, the same concept as what the States claim to have today – that is the original colony powers that were not handed to the Federal Government at Federation in 1901. Hypothetical scenario in the future, a new mine is needed on land that is protected with Native Title or under Land Rights. If these rights are held with First Nations people, they will need to be forced into negotiating in order for the mine to proceed. The Makarrata Commission will facilitate this. As long as First Nations hold Sovereign Residual Powers, the Makarrata Commission will exist. In the future, “Traditional Owners” will dread to receive a unexpected phone call from the Makarrata Commission.

Chart explaining why Makarrata will be needed forever
Created with Open Source software by the Author, graphics from the flags are fair-use, clipart is from Apache Open Office Impress. Feel free to share.

This, by the way, is very convenient for mining companies, they will know via the Makarrata Commission exactly which “Traditional Owner” groups they need to deal with and what agreements (vulnerabilities) these groups may be already under. No more running around trying to find an appropriate family group to trick or bribe with Woolworths vouchers, the Makarrata Commission will be their one-stop shop to take care of such pesky details.

Compensation for loss of Rights

I have a serious concern about the Yulara Statement claiming that “Sovereignty is a Spiritual Notion”. If First Nations claim that their connection to the land is merely Spiritual and nothing else, then logically they cannot claim compensation for loss of livelihood, loss of physical land/waters, loss of the right to use their own land to improve their lot through commercial activity that they choose to undertake. It could obstruct their claim to be able to build homes and infrastructure on their own land in order to support their community.  Sovereignty is not merely “a Spiritual notion”, I think these are very dangerous words that will limit First Nations from building themselves a future of true self-determination in a world vastly different to that pre-1788. It could make it so only claims for “pain and suffering” for loss of spiritual connection will be eligible for compensation.

It is ridiculous to claim that First Nations, pre-1788 interest in their land was merely Spiritual. Just like every other inhabitant on this earth, they depended on their land for their physical sustenance, food, water, their shelter, the forming of their contextual relationships in time-space, their sense of belonging and identity etc. These elements may have a spiritual aspect, but they are not exclusively spiritual notions. These interests exist universally wherever there are humans living in a society, regardless of the societies religious/spiritual beliefs or lack thereof.

Makarrata: Coming Together after a Struggle

Coming together for a cup of tea, damper and a respectful yarn?

Or coming together like a pack of lions to feast on the fresh carcass of First Nations Sovereignty?

To summarise;

  • Makarrata is based on a gross power imbalance
  • First Nations have only the right to advise when asked
  • First Nations will have no right to say “no”
  • Overall transfer of rights will be by definition one-way
  • It is deceitful and it’s true intentions are grossly misrepresented
  • It will end in misery for First Nations.

 

Current events: Aboriginal leaders want referendum delayed

~ Jessica Savage ~ Leave a comment

18 October 2018 (yes it is two weeks old, I am playing catch-up)

From abc.net.au;

Key points:

  • Aboriginal leaders support constitutional recognition, urge politicians to drive public support
  • The group said the vote would be guaranteed to fail without generating more support among Australians
  • The comments have disappointed some Indigenous Australians who endorsed the Uluru Statement in May

If you are paying attention, you will notice things that are falling into place at the moment. There’s been more op-eds being churned out, a week of action announced and a new branded social media campaign to build interest. And they are all related to the upcoming release of the final report of the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee report due on 29 November. This Committee has been running since March.

The support for the Yulara Statement amongst the Australian public is not doing well. Someone is paying for the Voice Treaty Truth campaign, and whoever that is would be conducting regular polling to measure campaign effectiveness. To do otherwise would be foolish in this day and age. So far, they have only released a handful of polling results to the public, the best polling at about 60%. To run a successful campaign, you have to present an air of confidence and success, so you don’t want to release all the bad polling.  Meanwhile, various politicians and insiders make public statements to the lines of  “It will fail for sure”. They are saying this not because they don’t support the measures, but because they have seen the unreleased polling – and it is not strong enough for them to volunteer to be the first to stick their neck out to say “it’s referendum time”.

Since the conference at Yulara, the flame has been carried by the low-key Voice Treaty Truth campaign, but they clearly need help. The low-key, “grassroots” approach is not working – they need a funding injection.

Cue the “Aboriginal leaders”, who are now pleading with the Government-run Joint Select Committee to say “We are not ready, there is no support!”. And of course, the Committee will swoop in to save the day when they release their report later in November, with the pleas from the “leaders” still fresh in everyones mind. Predictably the report will come with a recommendation along the lines of “The committee recommends the Government injects funding into publicising the proposals, as public awareness is low”. Boom – government has just engineered giving itself the green light to drop another few million flogging their re-branded “Recognise”.

Make no mistake – this is purely a Government driven agenda. They support it 100%, but they need a referendum to get the job done. The last piece of the puzzle is to get the Australian public to support it.

History – The 90’s: Mabo, Cathy Freeman and the failed 1999 Republic Referendum

~ Jessica Savage ~ 1 Comment

In 1994, I was a regular at my local little athletics club. We were all really excited about Cathy Freeman running in the Commonwealth games, but it was extra special for us Aboriginal kids.  It was the first time I really noticed the mainstream celebrate an Aboriginal person.

I was watching the race, standing in front of the telly, clenched in suspense, then jumping up and down in excitement. She won! But then she started her victory lap. She was smiling, draped with the Australian and Aboriginal flags. It jarred me, I was in shock. For me, the Aboriginal flag was a flag of grievance. Why is she protesting? Why else do you fly that flag besides protesting against something? Why is she smiling? Is she protesting the Commonwealth Games? Deaths in Custody? What the heck is she doing! Excitement turned into confusion.

Next time around, at the 2000 Olympics, she did the same thing. This time I understood it to be an assertion of her identity, something which didn’t enter my mind in 1994. I think that by that time, I had also adopted the flag as an assertion of my identity. Somehow the flag morphed from being a flag of resistance to a flag of Aboriginal identity. Was it just me, or was it a major change in the zeitgeist? If a change in the zeitgeist, how did it happen?

Timeline 1991-1995

1991 – April Royal Commission into Deaths in Custody, final report published. First use of the term “Reconciliation”.

1991 – 28-31 May Mabo (No 2) Hearings

1991 – 2 September Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (CAR) Act. “Because it would be most desirable that there would be such a reconciliation by the 2001 Centenary.”

1992 – May Torres Strait Islander flag designed in a competition.

1992 – 3 June Mabo (No 2) decision handed down

1993 – September Sydney wins 2000 Olympic bid

         – December Native Title Act 1993

1994 – Commonwealth games in Victoria, B.C. Canada. Cathy Freeman parades flag x2.

1995 – 14 July. Flags Act Aboriginal and Islander flags become official Flags of Australia. But they are due to expire in 2008 because of an ‘administrative error’.

Looking back, it is amazing how quickly these things happened. In just 5 years after Mabo showed First Nations sovereignty as an existential threat to Australia, the Aboriginal resistance flag (which was already 20 years old), morphed into an Aboriginal identity flag, now officially named the “Australian Aboriginal Flag”. A competition was held to design a flag to represent Torres Strait Islander peoples. Note… designed in a competition – not a spontaneous grass-roots action out of practical necessity. Both became official flags of Australia, signed off by the Queens representative, the Governor-General. Note that an administrative error meant this decree would expire in 2008. An honest mistake – or did someone think the flags would only need temporary enacted, pending a successful republic referendum perhaps?

From the Proclamation Explanatory Statement (emphasis added);

A proclamation was made by the Governor-General on 14 July 1995 recognising the flag described in the Schedule as the flag of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and a flag of significance to the Australian nation generally, and appointing the flag under section 5 of the Flags Act 1953 as the flag of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and to be known as the Australian Aboriginal Flag.

Read carefully – the flag of the Aboriginal peoples. That was not what the flag represented just a few year earlier. Before Cathy Freeman draped herself in it at the Commonwealth games it was more like the Eureka Stockade flag, a flag of resistance. Also the name, “Australian Aboriginal Flag” – Aboriginal peoples as a group are still not Australian, we are foreign to the Australian system, something which I will write about more later.

Cathy Freeman didn’t get into trouble for her actions, she sparked discussion and controversy but that was about it. In the 1994 Commonwealth games she carried the Aboriginal flag TWICE. Once after winning the 400m. She was warned not to do it again, yet despite her clear future ambitions to win an Olympic medal at the already announced Sydney Olympics – she ignored the warning and carried the flag again after winning the 200m. Why did she put her Olympic future in jeopardy from disobeying instructions by carrying the flag the second time? Later during the Sydney 2000 Olympics, she was the final torch-bearer and lit the cauldron. Do you think someone who is a threat to the establishment would be granted such privileges? It was a set-up. I am not saying Cathy Freeman herself was “in on it”, she may have come up with the idea herself, but I am saying it is very doubtful that they didn’t want her to do it. She was permitted – if not behind the scenes encouraged to do this to re-brand our flag of resistance in order to diffuse negativity against the occupying government in time for the Sydney Olympics. But – if the only purpose was merely to diffuse negativity of the flag for the upcoming Olympics, then the Torres Strait Islander flag would not also have been designed and put in the act – there is a greater agenda at play.  The greater agenda is to push “Reconciliation” and  assimilation to prepare for the 1999 referendum.

I won’t discuss Native Title here as it is a huge topic, but if you are aware how problematic the Native Title Act has been for land rights, for context keep in mind that post-Mabo era was where Native Title started.

Road-map to 1999 referendum

If you have ever worked with or for Government, you know they love their multi-year plans and road-maps. Another thing they love, is setting the finish-line of these plans on significant anniversary dates.

The 2001 Centenary (100 years since Federation) was one such significant anniversary. The big goal was to pass the 1999 republic referendum, hold the Sydney Olympics, and become a republic 100 years after federation.

Sovereign First Nations dodged a major bullet when the 1999 referendum failed. The referendum plan was likely initiated in the chaos of Mabo, a plan to reconcile (“reconciliation”) the legal ramifications from the (illegal under International law) occupation that goes back to first contact. The plan of making the Aboriginal flag and Torres Strait Islander flag as identity flags and putting them in the flags act, the “Reconciliation” public education campaign run by CAR, as well as adding a Aboriginal recognition constitutional preamble was to assimilate us in their system as much as possible, make us seem like we are legally Australian.  It is a continuation of 1967 when Aboriginal peoples got the vote.

It might sound a bit silly – to think that these little things matter – but perspective does matter. Think about what it looks like from an outsiders perspective. Aboriginal people are voting, have their flag in Australian law, participating in society, sending their kids to Public schools, traveling on Australian passports, using public hospitals/medicare, paying taxes – even though many simultaneously keep their cultural ties, customs and laws. We are acquiring citizenship by Australia by a process of “fake it until you make it”. What is not obvious to an outsider is that Aboriginal people don’t have a choice – it is assimilate or die/live in poverty. There is a carrot/stick approach at play.

Should the 1999 referendum have passed, when the Crown hands back the reigns she hands it to a seemingly happily united democratic country. A new independent country that inherits it’s Sovereignty through the Aboriginal peoples, who would in turn gain full Australian citizenship through statute buried in the Republic fine-print during Crown hand-back. Hopefully, the Aboriginal peoples wouldn’t catch on to what happened to their Sovereignty, they all move to the city and are accepted by the mainstream who have been educated by “Reconciliation” to play nice and not be racist.

But the referendum failed. The Australian public rightly sensed it as being pushed from the Government onto them, they saw it as a power grab from politicians, and the public didn’t see much in it for them.

When a referendum fails, a government can’t just keep holding the same referendum over and over again until they get the answer they want (although some try!). They have to wait another 10-20 years for things to settle down, and to give time to enact “awareness” campaigns. After the failure in 1999, a new planning phase began for a retry. They didn’t waste any time.